Text Messaging in Tok Pisin: Etymologies and Orthographies in Cosmopolitan Papua New Guinea

Handman, Courtney

doi:10.1080/14735784.2013.818288

Cited by 16 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Several recent ethnographies have addressed the multiple types of coordination necessary to fashion collective identities, setting new technologies in relation to already circulating ideas about modernity, diaspora, nationalism, cosmopolitanism, and globalization (Bate 2013, Handman 2013, Ito et al 2010, Kunreuther 2014, Weidman 2006. Anthropologists have observed that when people are texting, rapid and deliberate switches between English and local languages can signal a new cosmopolitan identity-someone conversant with both global circuits and local strategies for construing value (McIntosh 2010, Swank 2014.…”

Section: Old and New Identitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Language and the Newness of Media

Gershon

2017

Annu. Rev. Anthropol.

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How is the newness of new media constructed? Rejecting technological determinism, linguistic anthropologists understand that newness emerges when previous strategies for coordinating social interactions are challenged by a communicative channel. People experience a communicative channel as new when it enables people to circulate knowledge in new ways, to call forth new publics, to occupy new communicative roles, to engage in new forms of politics and control—in short, new social practices. Anthropologists studying media have been modifying the analytical tools that linguistic anthropologists have developed for language to uncover when and how media are understood to provide the possibilities for social change and when they are not. Taking coordination to be a vulnerable achievement, I address recent work that elaborates on the ways that linguistic anthropology segments communication to explore how a particular medium offers its own distinctive forms of authorship, circulation, storage, and audiences.

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Section: Old and New Identitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Language and the Newness of Media

Gershon

2017

Annu. Rev. Anthropol.

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“…Another prominent strand in research on semiotics and materiality has been in the materiality of writing. In 2014 this ranged from studies of the linguistic preferences that telephone keypads reinforce (Sherouse ) to linguistic subversion through the use of new orthographic conventions in text messaging in Tok Pisin (Handman ). And linguistic studies within anthropology would be incomplete without our fair share of cryptographic puzzles.…”

Section: Peregrinations Of Persons and Textsmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Disassembly Line: Linguistic Anthropology in 2014

Graber

2015

AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST

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Recent developments in linguistic anthropology have been animated by twin processes of dis-and reassembly. We increasingly view languages and the people who speak them as fragmented and partible, and processes of migration, circulation, and translocation demand more of our attention. The subfield has also been engaging in some reflexive dis-and reassembly by reflecting on the position of language and linguistics in anthropology and on our relationship to other disciplines and subdisciplines. In this essay, I review the year 2014 in linguistic anthropology by examining these trends across four main clusters of research: (1) fractured multilingualism,(2) peregrinations of persons and texts, (3) distributed and recombinant selves in interaction, and (4) publics and participation. [multilingualism, migration, heteroglossia, agency, semiotics, linguistic anthropology, year in review] RESUMEN Desarrollos recientes en antropología lingüística han sido animados por procesos simultáneos de desmontaje y montaje. Cada vez más vemos lenguas y hablantes como si fueron fragmentadas y divisibles, y procesos de migración, circulación, y translocación nos llama más la atención. A la vez el subcampo ha estado involucrado en desmontaje y montaje reflexivo, explorando la posición del lenguaje y la lingüística en antropología y pensando en nuestras relaciones con otras disciplinas y subdisciplinas. En este ensayo se revisa el año 2014 en antropología lingüística examinando estas tendencias a través de cuatro líneas de investigación:(1) multilingüismo fracturado, (2) peregrinación de personas y textos, (3) egos distribuidos y recombinantes en interacción, y (4) públicos y participación. [multilingüismo, migración, heteroglosia, agencia, semiótica, antropología lingüística, año en revisión]

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“…Foster (2020) expands on the same concept of the moral economy of mobile phones, focusing on the relationships between consumers, mobile phone providers and state regulators. A number of other recent articles also explore the influence of mobile phone usage in the Pacific on social relationships (Andersen, 2013;Kraemer, 2015;Lipset, 2013;Singh & Nadarajah, 2011;Taylor, 2015;Telban & Vávrová, 2014;Watson, 2013;Watson & Duffield, 2016); on language usage (Handman, 2013;Temple, 2011;Vandeputte-Tavo, 2013); and on the reshaping of approaches to political campaigning and advocacy (Tarai et al, 2015;Titifanue et al, 2016Titifanue et al, , 2017. A recurring theme throughout these studies is the arrival of Digicel, which has swept across six countries of the region since 2006 (Fiji, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu), always with a splash and almost always with great success (Horst, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Digicel! Topap long ples ia! An international telecommunications company making itself at home in the urban landscapes of Vanuatu, Samoa and Tonga

Willans

Gure

Vaifale

et al. 2022

Australian J of Anthropology

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Mobile phone usage has increased at an unprecedented rate across the Pacific over the past 10–15 years, radically transforming the way communication takes place. The catalyst for this transformation is generally attributed to the breakdown of monopolies previously held by national telecom corporations over their own domestic markets, and the entrance of one particular new provider, Digicel. This paper examines the strategies through which Digicel has managed to insert itself into the visual landscape of the urban spaces of Vanuatu, Samoa and Tonga. Through multimodal analysis of digital photographs from the landscapes of these countries' capital cities, the paper shows how the global company makes use of a range of techniques to establish its own place and identity as a local network. These techniques include the demonstration of largesse and dominance over competitors, slogans that stake a claim to belonging, and the use of local language terms and images that juxtapose the local with the global. Through these techniques, Digicel manages to position itself simultaneously as the provider both of fast and reliable global communication technologies and of a truly local, national service, while also radically transforming the physical spaces of our cities as it has made itself at home here.

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Text Messaging in Tok Pisin: Etymologies and Orthographies in Cosmopolitan Papua New Guinea

Cited by 16 publications

References 7 publications

Language and the Newness of Media

Language and the Newness of Media

On the Disassembly Line: Linguistic Anthropology in 2014

Digicel! Topap long ples ia! An international telecommunications company making itself at home in the urban landscapes of Vanuatu, Samoa and Tonga

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